Dear U.S. Senators:
The Build Back Better agenda was crucial when it was first announced, and now working families are at a breaking point. America’s workers, businesses, and families need this law. In the ongoing pandemic and with all the economic risks associated with it, it’s clear Build Back Better is needed more than ever, not only to support working families and to strengthen jobs and our economy, but also to enable growth and resilience. As schools open and close, and as businesses struggle to maintain their workforce, passage of Build Back Better cannot come soon enough.
The Senate now has an historic opportunity to prioritize building a durable, equitable, family-focused care infrastructure that cuts costs for families, helps address inflation, boosts businesses, promotes public health, and creates and improves jobs, including by raising wages and providing better opportunities for workers to join unions.
We urge you to pass Build Back Better with the following urgently needed policies:
- Child Care and Pre-K: Access to universal preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds, lower child care costs for the vast majority of families, increased wages for early educators, and measures to build the supply of desperately needed high-quality child care slots, which will improve children’s and families’ lives for years to come.
- Paid Family and Medical Leave: In addition to limiting the spread of COVID-19 by allowing workers to recover from serious illness without spreading it at work, paid family and medical leave would help new parents and people who are seriously ill or have a close loved one who is seriously ill stay in the workforce, thereby increasing labor supply. Such an investment would help reduce long-term inflation caused by supply chain issues and be a critical support to small businesses.
- Home- and Community-Based Services: Access to long-term care that seniors and people with disabilities need in their homes and communities, along with better pay and working conditions for care workers, who are a majority women of color.
- Child Tax Credits: The monthly Child Tax Credit payments ended in December 2021, leaving millions of families without critical income that kept millions of children out of poverty and helped families afford basic necessities. Families, including ITIN filers, need the Child Tax Credit made permanent.
We, 250+ advocacy organizations and leaders representing millions of your constituents across America, urge you to act with haste to pass Build Back Better. Now is the time to make these investments in both working families and our workforce.
We don’t have another school day, work day, pay day, or minute to lose.
Sincerely,